1. Kate Anderson September 2014
Parliament
Kate Anderson
September 2014

2. Parliament’s Outreach Service
a free service from the Houses of Parliament
politically neutral
aims to increase knowledge and engagement with work and processes of Parliament
Important points to stress:
You don’t work for an MP or for a political party.
The service is free of charge.
You will be giving facts about Parliament and expressing no opinions.
Why bother? Because better engagement from you helps Parliament do its job. It needs to know about the effects of legislation and policy, and unless you tell them, it’s really hard for them to know.

3. Objectives By the end of this presentation, you will know:
what Parliament is
what Parliament does and why it is important
the difference between Parliament and Government
how to find out more

5. What is Parliament? House of Commons House of Lords The Monarch
Parliament comprises of three things. Two institutions and one person – the Queen
The House of Commons
The democratically elected house of Parliament. This is the one that is voted in every five years when there is an election.
The House of Lords
The second chamber of Parliament.
Not as important as the House of Commons. Not elected. Lords and Baronesses (Peers) are usually appointed because they are experts in a particular subject. Lord Sugar is an expert in business, Baroness Manningham-Buller was appointed when she retired from being head of MI5, which makes her chief spy, and Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson is an expert in Sport – she has won more medals than any other Olympic or Paralympic athlete. The House of Lords can only disagree with something that the House of Commons wants to do three times and then they have to let it through. Often, when the House of Lords tells the Government that they don’t like something the Government will make a change although not often the exact change the House of Lords want.
The Queen
The Queen is the Head of State. She opens Parliament every year and asks the party that wins a general election to become the government. The queen also has to agree all the laws that the rest of parliament votes for, but she always does.
Can anyone guess the last time a monarch disagreed with parliament? It was more than 300 years ago in Queen Anne.
Parliament spends about half its time deciding on the rules of the country by making and passing laws to deal with our constantly changing society.
It takes money from taxpayers, which the government uses to carry out its work. All government money comes from the people when they pay taxes like income tax, which is paid out of people’s wages and VAT, which is an extra cost added to things you buy, which the government takes in tax. It uses that money to run services like hospitals and schools, to pay soldiers, build roads.
It checks that government is doing a good job – which we call scrutiny - through MPs and Members of the House of Lords asking questions, which the government have to answer.
It also debates issues that are important and that the people care about.
The democratically elected chamber of Parliament.
Often known as the revising House as they happen to spend approximately 60% of their time reviewing Bills.
The Monarch
I do not work for MPs.
The Queen

6. The Queen

7. The House of Lords

8. The House of Commons
The House of Commons is perhaps the part of Parliament we are all most familiar with as we are used to seeing the green benches on the news.
It is the democratically elected chamber of Parliament which means that we, the British public, are responsible for the political composition of the House.
Each MP represents an average of 68,500 potential voters, in the 650 parliamentary constituencies plus everyone else who is in their area who cannot vote (under 18s etc). There are 649 MPs, but that is due to the resignation of Sir Patrick Mercer, there will be an election in a couple of weeks.
MPs represent everyone in their constituency – regardless of their political affiliations and whether they voted for them or not.
The number of seats is decided by the Boundary Commission – an independent body which recommends the boundaries regarding Parliamentary constituencies.
At the 2010 general election the number of seats increased from 646 to 650 to reflect the growing population.
The party, or parties, with the largest number of seats in the House of Commons forms the Government (which remember is different from Parliament).

9. What does Parliament do?
Makes and passes laws
(Legislation)
Holds Government to account
Enables the Government to set taxes

10. The Government
the party with (usually) the majority of seats in the House of Commons forms the Government
the Government:
runs public departments (e.g. Home Office)
suggests new laws to Parliament
is accountable to Parliament
The political party with (usually) the majority of seats in the House of Commons forms the Government. The Government proposes new laws to Parliament. The Government consists of approximately 100 members, all of whom are chosen by the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister can choose whoever they want to be a member of their Government, with the only convention being that they are accountable to Parliament, and must therefore be a member of the House of Lords or the House of Commons.
The Government runs public departments, such as Health, Transport, Schools.
It is through the creation of legislation that the departments and local authorities are required to follow Government policy. If Government policy is not reflected in legislation then there is no obligation to follow it.
Ministers are MPs or Members of the Lords who are given extra responsibilities for leading or assisting the leader of one of the Government departments.
The Cabinet consists of senior Ministers chosen by the Prime Minister – the executive committee who head Government departments and decide Government policy.
Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government departments and are generally called ‘Secretary of State’, although some have special titles, such as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Ministers of State, Junior Ministers and Parliamentary Under–Secretaries of State assist the ministers in charge of the department.
A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is selected from backbench MPs as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the minister in the House of Commons.
Whips are MPs or Members of the Lords who are appointed to maintain party discipline. They make sure people vote the right way and show up.

11. Parliament (Westminster)
Government (Whitehall)
some MPs and some Lords, chosen by the Prime Minister
runs Government departments and public services
Commons, Lords and Monarch
holds Government to account
passes laws
This is another way to think about the distinction between Parliament and Government: they are in different places (Westminster / Whitehall).
Parliament is all MPs, all Members of the House of Lords and the Monarchy
Government is just some MPs and some Peers who have been chosen by the Prime Minister to be Ministers.
If you can command the confidence of the House, you can form a Government.

12. Where to start: your MP
Your MP’s contact details will be on the Parliament website:
You can call the House of Commons Information Office on
Or at your town hall or local library
Many MPs will have a contact address and number in the constituency
What MPs do:
MPs don’t have a job description,
What each MP does varies - however all MPs work in their constituency and in Parliament (the House of Commons).
MPs divide their time between their constituency and Westminster.
MPs ask questions, take part in debates, question governmetn Ministers and vote on debates and bills.
They can vote as they wish, but generally they are expected to vote with their party.
One of the great things about working closely with MPs is seeing how they deal with constituency issues. It is perfectly ordinary to see normally pro-business economically liberal right-wing MPS rage against the excesses of capitalism and the evils of big business when it is their constituents being treated badly. The same is true for left-wing Labour MPs becoming cheer leaders for those same big businesses – arms manufacturers or whoever - when their constituents might benefit from jobs. If you have a constituency issue, don’t look at the party and think of someone like that won’t be interested. If it affects their constituents and you have evidence that it affects their constituents, use that evidence and use those stories. They will be interested.

13. All-Party Groups
informal cross-party groups on many different subjects, e.g.
Youth Affairs
Asthma
Football
APGs, sometimes called APPGs, are a useful way to identify MPs/Lords with an interest in a certain issue
All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs)
Informal groups of predominantly backbench MPs and Members of the House of Lords from all parties that meet to discuss and research areas of common interest.
There are generally two types – subject groups (relating to a particular topic eg forestry) and country groups (relating to a particular country or region).
The Register of All-Party Groups shows which groups are recognised by the House of Commons, who their officers are, and what support groups receive from outside Parliament.
These groups are not a formal part of the Westminster apparatus – unlike select committees they do not receive secretarial support or funding from Parliament, nor do they hold public enquiries. However they are formally recognised by Parliament. Some groups hold regular meetings where groups are invited to attend and make presentations to help MPs and Peers to develop their knowledge of the subject.
They often rely on the support of external organisations for information, statistics, briefings. Age UK provide support to the All-Party Group on Ageing and Older People.
They are a fantastic opportunity for organisations to increase awareness of their work amongst MPs and Peers.
You can search all APPGs and find their contact details on You can ask a relevant group for a list of their members, and this will give you a list of MPs and Peers who may be interested in your campaign.
There is a convention that MPs can deal only with their constituents, so if you are contacting someone who is not your constituency MP, be very very clear that you are contacting them in their capacity as a member of an all party group or someone who has an interest in a particular issue.

14. Peers
Members of the House of Lords do not have constituencies, so in theory, you can contact any member
Identify Peers who will support your campaign
Biographies of all Peers are available at
Hansard is a good place to look for examples of Peers’ interests and causes
The Parliament website gives the interests of Peers, but be careful, if they say they are interested in the environment and green issues for example, their interest might actually be in debunking climate change, so use Hansard to see if what they have said chimes with your cause.

15. Where can I get information?
Commons Information Office
Lords Information Office
Parliament’s Outreach Service
Parliament’s Outreach Service can come and deliver workshops to any groups, usually at a place and time convenient to them.
POST
We do need a minimum of 15 people per session.
Ask the learners to complete feedback forms.